A tiny endangered deer lives only in the Florida Keys. They are rarely hunted now, but still are killed by cars and face challenges from … Here’s what we know about its fate. Key deer were hunted almost to extinction in the early 20th century. They are now isolated to a 6-mile area with most of the population on Big Pine Key. Key Deer Conservation.
In 1922, the deer had a range of 60 miles from Duck Key to Key West. The Lower Keys is also the only place on the planet where Key deer live. A Key deer forages for food in the National Key Deer Refuge on Big Pine Key.

They are not found anywhere else in the world. Experts think the Key deer migrated from the mainland to the Keys thousands of years ago. The biggest and most important of those islands is 16-square-mile Big Pine Key, home to the bulk of the deer population and the base for the federal deer refuge. Hunting of the Key Deer has been banned since 1939 when the number of them was drastically low due to people doing so. To protect their dwindling numbers a Wildlife Refuge was established in 1957. The endangered Key deer herd was already coming out of a tough year — the herd lost more than 100 animals to New World screwworm.
The National Key Deer Refuge was founded in the 1950s and they were added to the Endangered Species List in 1967. So when the eye of Hurricane Irma crossed the Lower Keys as a Category 4 storm, wildlife managers were worried. Conservation efforts are in place for the Key Deer due to the fact that they are on the Endangered Species list. Tiny Key Deer Are An Endangered White Tail Deer Species Cute, tiny and totally unique to the Florida Keys, the key deer are beloved, and unfortunately endangered. The Key deer is a subspecies of white-tailed deer that lives only on a few islands in the Florida Keys, from Little Pine Key to Sugarloaf Key.